making out with the pavement
by sarakirai
Summary: somethings that mean nothing, and nothings that mean something. [teito x ouka, modern AU.]


**making out with the pavement**

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**07-Ghost**

**[teito x ouka]**

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**A/N:**

Disclaimer: I do not own 07-Ghost

also title is a song lyric from Jake Bugg's Simple As This

ho hum what else is there to sayyyy er well modern AU, _no they are not in college don't give me that face _and if you think they're OOC then there's nothing I'm going to do about it anyway ;-;

chronological, but events are not wholly consecutive - random timeskips and all

(found this extra manga volume today called 07-Ghost: Children and ooohhh kawaii everyone is so kawaii SO KAWAIIIIIIII)

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She comes in, orders a latte to go. He keys in the order on the cash register, counts her change out, and remembers to look up and ask for her name. There's a short lull after he poses the question, and she stares blankly at him, holding the black marker poised and ready over the Styrofoam whiteness of the cup. His eyes hover.

"Rose," she says finally.

He takes her in, all pink hair and pink eyes and pink lips, and smiles as he scribbles the moniker down. It's obviously not her real name, or at least not the one she usually gives to people. Rose. Not very imaginative, perhaps, but she's guarded and street smart enough. In this neighbourhood, you'd have to be an idiot not to be – either an idiot or dead. He decides, maybe, in a very detached and benevolently approving way, to like this girl.

(Of course, he has no way of knowing, at this point, that her full name is in fact Roseamanelle Ouka Barsburg, of which Rose is a perfectly legitimate contraction.)

The bell jingles rather violently as the door swings open a second time, opening to let in the crisp outside air and a very clamorous child who immediately runs over to demand an after-day care hug from the other side of the counter. And an introduction to the pretty lady, in that order.

"Is he yours?" she asks, peering down at the little blond bundle of cuteness. Capella.

He quirks a wry smile, turning from the coffee machine to face her as he presses all the requisite buttons, slim fingers skimming quickly over the knobs. "Nah," Teito replies casually, "he's not. Neither of us knows who our parents are." (This is actually a lie, but she doesn't need to know that at this point.) And adds, at the uncomprehending look on her face, that the two of them are "orphanage kids, you know. That big grey building just up the street."

A flicker of recognition crosses her face – so she does know the place. It's one of those things that are hard to miss even when you're trying, squatting low and gloomy on the fringes of the neighbourhood, a hulking grey block of oppressive sullenness. It's a little sucky, but living off the generosity of the church means that he can have a roof over his head and food for free, even get sent to school – which leaves him way better off than when he was still living on the streets, skilled with his hands and head but not his heart.

Nothing to think twice about, when lives were on the line. They had to die, see, they had to die or he wouldn't get paid and wouldn't get to eat, wouldn't be able to get away without a crippling beating for his failure. He never failed. Both himself and those who hired him.

Well, at least until he was forced to re-evaluate his understanding of the word 'failure'.

It was a little late in life to be first learning about morals (especially from a bishop who was the town's most avid consumer of pornography and who had no appreciation for the concept of irony), but he'd got it. _If you're going to kill people, you've got to have a reason. And you've got to believe wholeheartedly in that reason. Either that or don't get caught._Teito's more preoccupied, though, with not getting caught in the dozen little death traps that get sent his way every single day by Ayanami, that fucking bastard. Keeping him on his toes, my_arse_.

There's no pink over the counter top, she must have crouched down to speak to Capella. He pushes the cap down firmly over the rim of the coffee cup, slips the paper ring on, and slides it over to the edge.

"Have a nice day."

He watches through the glass front of the shop as she disappears across the street, and picks up the low roar of a car engine soon after, over the hum of the machine as it dispenses a cup of hot chocolate for his only remaining companion.

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He brushes the soot from his bangs and turns slightly to peer at her. She doesn't look at all disgusted even though she's pressed into the filthy ground, and he can tell that the residual vestiges of surprise on her face may be credited more to the suddenness of the attack than its very occurrence. _She's lived through these things before_, he realises.

Miss pink-haired twin tails exhales shortly, shoulders slumping ever so slightly – and he can feel the motion from where he is positioned, half his body pressed down over hers, as close to the ground as possible. She doesn't bother inching out from where she's lying half under him.

"That was pretty close," she mutters, bringing her face up and rubbing some of the grime off on her sleeve. He's certain she can see his profile in very, very close range from the corner of her eyes, but he doesn't typically make comments of that sort and isn't about to start now, so he lets it go unmentioned.

He chooses, instead, to smile at her appraisingly. "Someone's used to kissing the floor, are we?" he whispers over the shell of her ear, ducking his head a little to get level with her eyes. She avoids them, shiftily glancing from spot to spot that isn't green and bright with adrenaline – the tips of his hair, the curve of his nose, some far-off speck of rubble. "It's nothing to be proud of," she notes quietly, the muscles in her jaw tensing.

Teito thinks of smoothing the rigidity away; the curve of his smile diminishes; the corners of his eyes scrunch up a little more instead. "I know," he replies absently, rolling off her and sitting up carefully in the settling drifts of smoke; he gets to his feet as she rights herself too, and he reaches down to extend a hand to her. "But it isn't anything to be ashamed of either."

"I guess so," she sighs, as she takes his hand and braces her legs, ready to be hoisted to her feet. "Hey, do you keep count?"

"Not anymore," he says, deliberately vague, and she lets it drop.

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He's on the way back from a delivery when the timed explosive device in the motorbike goes off. From the place where he crash lands in the roadside shrubbery, he launches himself towards the nearest buildings for cover. It isn't until he's shimmied across the high fencing and is sprinting halfway across the uneven grass patch that he realises he's in a school compound. Concealing himself is easy enough, though, and he decides to wait under the nearest staircase until about half an hour has passed so it'll be relatively safe to sneak off.

Teito can't decide if his luck is shitty or phenomenal when he hears footsteps approaching and, upon craning his neck out a little to analyse the situation, he catches sight of long wisps of pink trailing over the staircase – and there is only one person it could conceivably be. He hisses to get her attention. When the shadow of her twin tails appears, hanging heavy over the railing, he sticks his head out to meet her eyes. In the dim interior of the stairwell, her face is shadowed, and her eyes glow dark red: the ruby twinset to his emerald orbs.

"Hey," he smiles wanly at her furrowed brow. "Take me to the infirmary?"

She considers him for a long moment then makes some indistinct sound of agreement, pattering down the remaining steps to meet him at the base. "Come along," she says, adding that it's a good thing everyone's currently in class. He _doesn't_ ask her why she isn't in class, just walks silently next to her and tries not to let his bloodied elbow brush up against her pristine uniform, the tendrils of her long wavy hair.

"So," Roseamanelle Ouka Barsburg says (he can read off her stitched-on nametag) as she sits on the thin cot next to him and drops the bundle of gauze and bandages and alcohol swabs in his lap, "not so much fun making out with the pavement today?"

He eyes her sardonically (he's good at that). "It's a one-time thing," he comments.

"So," he continues after a beat of contemplative silence, "Barsburg, huh?" _Ayanami's backers, he would know._

"Barsburg," she affirms. "Mind taking your shirt off? Or should we cut the sleeve?"

He elects to peel it off, gritting his teeth as the torn cloth scrapes over the raw open redness of his elbow wound. She watches, a small smile playing on her lips as she watches him struggle with the garment; then helps him shuck off the sleeve on his uninjured arm first before peeling the other one free quickly and cleanly. It doesn't take her very long to patch him up (she's good at that). He can't help but flush when she redresses him, rolling the sleeve up and folding it above the elbows, black stark against his pale skin and the ridiculously white colour of the wrappings over his wound.

Teito lets himself out when she says she's going to stay in the infirmary and catch forty winks, and stands unmoving in the deserted hallway for a while before backtracking stealthily. He doesn't expect to see the girl curled up in foetal position on the mattress around the spot where he was sitting previously, fingers of one hand curled over a stray drop of blood on the covers.

She looks up warily when he lowers his slight weight onto the foot of the bed, only lightly depressing the mattress. He's staring out of the window, and she follows his line of sight. His voice is soft, measured.

"Hey," he says, "can I call you Ouka?"

She catches his shirttails between her fingertips. Waits until he feels compelled to speak again.

"Roseamanelle Ouka Barsburg," he sighs, quite wistfully. "Roseamanelle Ouka Barsburg, and Wahrheit Tiashe Raggs."

Quite the pair.

He turns to glance at her. She meets his gaze. "Yeah, you can call me Ouka, _Tiashe_."

(She whispers his name like a sin, and that's because it is one for her.)

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A few months later he sustains a nasty knife wound to the back, and just as he sits down on his allocated cot in the orphanage and strips his shirt off, Capella bangs the door open and drags Ouka in.

"Dear me," she quips dryly, "We're making quite the habit of this, aren't we?"

"Perfect timing as always, my lady," he returns evenly, trying for a dash of gentlemanly suaveness. Capella is very amused. They send the little brat out of the room to go get the medical supplies, and Ouka pulls a rickety chair up to the edge of the bed and perches cross-legged on it, leaning in to inspect the ugly gash under his right shoulder blade.

It's kind of unexpected, but totally fitting, when she leans down and draws her tongue slowly across the length of his wound.

"You taste like dirt," she muses, and he chuckles.

"Good thing you're used to kissing floors," he teases, turning to grin at her exaggerated eye-rolling.

"I'm also getting used to stitching you up, you know."

Teito smiles – almost unguardedly – and turns away from her again.

"Yeah," he says, "and I'm getting used to having you here to stitch me up."

Seems like neither of them is going anywhere anytime soon. They nestle in the swathes of comfortable silence until Capella returns, the very tips of their fingers laced together: forming a bridge over the gorge that separates chair and bed.

Thin bands of skin, hot to the touch.

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**A/N:**

hmm yeah just experimenting

teito x ouka because they are kawaii

and also because this fandom is completely overwhelmed by the slash pairings whoopee (I don't have anything against yaoi, but man the het ships need some space to BREATHE *claws at surroundings*)

p.s. I am fond of shuri oak lol

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